"Oh, come, this ain't no hold up game, is it, ladies?" and the big man tried to look as if he considered the whole affair a huge joke; but he was very careful not to make a threatening move; and he kept his eyes fixed on the two little round holes of Ruth's pistol, in a horrible staring way that Ruth never forgot.
"No," Ruth answered shortly. "It is not a hold up; and there is going to be no hold up in this case," she added significantly; "so just turn your horses around and gallop back the way you came; and be very careful not to let your hands go near your belts or to look back while doing it," she warned.
"Oh, say, now," began the small man. "This ain't hospital-like. We ain't meanin' you ladies no harm. We—"
"Drop the talk and turn your horses around and get," Iola commanded so imperatively, so threateningly that both men, in a sudden panic of fear—like nearly all rascals they were cowards and those two pistols in those two girlish hands might go off at any instant—whirled their horses around and galloped off, while a bullet from one of the barrels of Iola's pistol, whistling between their heads, added to their panic and speed.
"Do you," and Ruth turned her white face to Iola, the moment the two men were at a safe distance, "do you really think they were the two men who murdered the miner?"
"Yes," answered Iola, as she began reloading her pistol, with hands that trembled now so that she could hardly pour the powder into the barrel. "I am sure they were. Ugh! But what a dreadful fright they gave me! I felt certain they were going to murder us, when they started toward us."
"And—and do you suppose they were trying to find out about that skin map and the Cave of Gold?" and Ruth's face again began whitening.
"Yes, that is it!" and Iola started. "That was what made them so angry and ugly, when we told them that Thure and Bud had already started for the mines. They at once suspicioned that the boys had the map and that they had started out to find the Cave of Gold. Oh, Ruth," and a look of horror came into Iola's face, "do you suppose they will start on the trail of Thure and Bud and try to get the map from them? Why, they might murder them!"
"That is exactly what I am afraid they will do," declared Ruth, her own face reflecting the horror in Iola's face. "But you may be sure that two cowards like them will never get the best of our brothers, unless they do it in some sneaking underhanded way; and the boys have been warned to look out for them. It won't take Thure and Bud as long to discover who they are, as it did us. The instant they see that broken nose and pock-marked face, they will be on their guard. But I do wish we had said nothing about the boys starting for the mines. Anyhow that is about all the information they did get from us that will do them any good, thank goodness! And they will have a mighty hard time finding and following their trail, unless they are old hunters and trappers; and they did not look as if they were. Anyhow it can't be helped now; and the best thing that we can do is to get back home as quickly as we can."
"I don't think we had better say anything to our mothers about meeting the two men," Iola said, as with a final look in the direction of the two horsemen, who were still galloping up the valley, they turned their horses homeward. "It wouldn't do any good to tell them and they'd worry a lot."